


the hour from night to day

by olandesevolante



Category: Homeland
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Implied/Referenced Torture, Missing Scene, Pre-Epilogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:54:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24200896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olandesevolante/pseuds/olandesevolante
Summary: Carrie tries to adapt to her new life in Moscow. Yevgeny tries to understand her.
Relationships: Carrie Mathison/Yevgeny Gromov
Comments: 18
Kudos: 36





	the hour from night to day

**Author's Note:**

> -I wanted to write something about those two years Carrie lives in Moscow before the ending of Homeland, it came out completely different from what I had in mind, as usual;  
> -the title comes from the poem "Four in the morning", by Wisława Szymborska;  
> -the lyrics at the opening come from "Monopoli", by Pinguini Tattici Nucleari, translated by me;  
> -English is not my first language, I apologize for every mistake.

“ _If you play with me, you lose everything,_

_if I play with you, you fall down.”_

It takes days of travelling and then days of questioning before she can see him again.

«We're going home now,» says Yevgeny, and for the first time since she's been smuggled into Syria, Carrie feels like she can breathe fully again.

She missed even the way he pronounces the H differently than what she's used to. It's something probably every Russian does, probably something she's going to get used to in her next future in Moscow, but now for her it only sounds like _Yevgeny_. It reminds her of rough discussions somewhere between Pakistan and Afghanistan, her brain remembers hushed conversations among birches that she doesn't really have any memory of if not the sensations of safety that his voice bring to her.

She leans into him. It's weird how the man that drove her crazy is also the one that is keeping her safe now.

\-----

_In the end, this is after Islamabad._ That's what Carrie thinks after, when she's lying on the bed, liquid-bones and satisfied, Yevgeny's fingers running lightly over invisible lines on her body. The Russian spy is propped on an elbow and Carrie can feel his eyes fixed on her face, studying every possible reaction that might come out of her. She doesn't have words to offer, though. She just catches the hand that is caressing her gently and brings it to her mouth to kiss it.

In her head just now she starts thinking something like, _I don't own anything anymore and I don't have a place that I can call mine_. She has never afforded herself to think so much about a life in Russia, not when she was in Syria, not when she first reached Moscow, not when she was questioned over and over again.

«Hey. What are you thinking about?» Yevgeny's voice brings her back from her thoughts, but she doesn't have an answer for him. She leans in for another kiss, the umpteenth of the night, and rolls over so that she's straddling him. Carrie can feel the Russian smile in the kiss, while his hands grips her waist harder.

\-----

Carrie has never thought things would be easy for her in Russia, or anywhere else in the world after revealing the identity of the spy in the Kremlin. Actually, she doesn't even remember the last time she could afford thinking that anything would be easy for her.

She doesn't regret what she did, but sometimes a memory resurfaces and it hurts, because it feels like it's coming from a life she's never going to get access to anymore. She's never going to discuss anything with Saul anymore, visit Quinn's grave, or talk to Virgil and try to make sense out of the death of Max. Her sister will never scold her again because she's not following the advice of the doctors, and she's not going to see her nieces growing up. She is going to be completely excluded from Franny's life.

The thought of Franny stings more than the rest. Not because she thinks she could be a good mother now for her, she realized from the start that motherhood wasn't her best quality. But the idea of never being able to see her again in person, that hurts. She was the only thing left in the world that tied her to Brody.

Brody. She throws the glass of wine she was drinking against the wall, and Yevgeny runs to her and holds her tight until she doesn't stop shaking.

\-----

One day he comes out with the idea of going to the dacha he owns. Carrie feels like a hand is gripping her lungs. The dacha where they tried to arrest Simone, one lifetime ago, before all this last madness started, before Yevgeny manipulated her in the asylum and before all the games they played in Afghanistan.

They never spoke about it, about her time in the asylum, even if Carrie knows they should. Yevgeny knows everything and she knows nothing if not that the feelings she has for him started back there and wishes to know more about it. Not that she's scared of hearing, _I used you to get to the asset and I manipulated you into seeing me as a savior_ ; she gave up on trying to have a normal love life years ago. However wrongly this all started, what she has now with Yevgeny is the closer to happiness that she has ever had with another person.

It doesn't mean that she doesn't know they're walking on thin ice. She's scared of waking up repulsed by him, by some memories that resurfaced of that time, and wanting out. She's scared of wanting to give up on the weird stability she found in Moscow with him.

Yevgeny never mentions the dacha again. Carrie decides to never ask about the asylum.

\-----

She starts doing what she does best. She asks Yevgeny for help at first without explaining him why he needs that stuff, and he gives her a long stare, an inquiring one as if he's studying her, and he must like what he reads because he brings her everything she asks for: a printer, pens, tapes, paper, everything she wants. If he spies on her when she works in the room of his house that he gave her as office, he doesn't let it show, he never asks why she's covering the walls with old articles of her cases or about people that worked with her at the CIA.

He doesn't ask anything because he knows that when she'll be ready for it, she'll be the one to explain what he already understood she's doing.

\-----

_Her country_. Is she still allowed to call the US like that, she wonders.

\-----

«Did you take the medicines this morning?»

Carrie hums absentmindedly, focused on some articles she has in her hands.

«Because that blister should be finished by today, I bought the new one, but I see there's still a pill in it.»

Carrie nods vaguely, eyes still fixed on the piece of paper she's holding.

«And I am going to set fire to the house.»

«Sure,» says Carrie, not looking at him, chewing on the end of a pencil. Yevgeny rolls his eyes, steps closer and tears both the article and the pencil away from her hands. «Hey! I was reading that, what are you doing?»

The Russian sits down next to her, and covers his face with the hands; Carrie never noticed just how tired he looks these last days, but now she can see that every feature of his face is screaming that he needs a break.

«Hey,» she just says, in a low voice, throwing her arms around his torso. Yevgeny doesn't resist and lets her drive him against her chest, and then closes his eyes.

«I can't do it alone, Carrie. I need to know you're looking after yourself enough to take your pills, so I can do my job without worrying that I will find you in a miserable state.»

Carrie runs her fingers through his hair, soothingly. She has to gulp down that something that formed in her throat before she can manage to say: «I'm sorry.»

\-----

«I am writing a book,» she says while Yevgeny is chopping vegetables for some soup she learnt to appreciate but she's never going to really like. The Russian doesn't answer but his lips curves upwards in a small smile, and there's where Carrie knows he's been knowing her intentions all along but never pushed for an explanation out of her for all the hours she spends in the office.

Her heart melts a bit at the sight and at the thought. «I want to write an account about my years at the CIA.»

Yevgeny throws the vegetables in a big pot. «Why?»

She takes the plates out of the cupboard and sets them on the table, along with the glasses. «I want my daughter to know the real story of who her father was. I want her to grow up knowing her father died as a hero.» The thought that the US still thinks of Brody as a terrorist only makes her want to throw something against the wall again, but then she decides the furniture of the house didn't do anything wrong to her.

Yevgeny stirs the soup. «And?»

Carrie takes some seconds before answering: «I want her to know her mother loves her more than anything else.»

Yevgeny doesn't press her for more. Probably he doesn't fully believe her, probably he wanted to get another kind of answer, something more along the lines of _I want the world to know just how fucked up they are_. But Yevgeny doesn't ask anything, and when he serves the soup he leaves a kiss on the top of her head, and Carrie smiles, feeling something warm spreading in her chest.

The perks of living with a spy. And of _loving_ a spy.


End file.
